Costa Coffee Branding - Case Study Example

The efficient and effective branding of its mobile coffee shops can promote Costa Coffee's popularity amongst its target consumer group, St. Andrews' students, faculty and staff. Branding is the concept through which an organization creates and maintains a unique identity. According to Williams (2004) branding differentiates a product or service. It begins with an organization's mission and core beliefs (Williams 2004). The goal of differentiating is to make an organization immediately recognizable to its publics by "consistently and repeatedly providing an ideal combination of attributes - both tangible and intangible, practical and symbolic, visible and invisible" (Knapferer 1994).

While the usual drive behind branding is generating revenue from sales or increasing brand loyalty for repeat purchase, branding can also be used to effectively increase knowledge of an organization and what it does. When it comes to branding an organization, especially one offering a new service such as mobile coffee services, branding can establish connections among stakeholders associated with the organization (Arozian 2003). Branding can also serve to support processes for communications initiatives in reaching those stakeholders (Arozian 2003).

Branding of Costa Coffee's mobile shops can generate support for this novelty in, but it is a long-term process. Branding is not something that is accomplished overnight, but rather something that grows out of the consistent presentation of the unique selling point. Over time this unique selling point, in this case bringing brand coffee to consumers, becomes tied to the brand name and logo so that consumers associate value with an organization. The overall result of branding is that the consumer perceives that the branded product is more valuable than identical non-branded items because "the brand is present even when it cannot be seen" (Knapferer 1994).

As Costa Coffee's mobile shop brand identity grows, Costa Coffee's perceived value will likely increase in the mind of the consumer. This pull generated by a brand is called brand equity. Brand equity could be considered one of the most important concepts in marketing because the generation of brand equity is the goal at the core of many marketing activities. According to the text, Advertising Excellence, brand equity combines "five elements: brand loyalty, brand awareness, perceived quality, associations other than quality (such as style, excitement, or healthiness), and proprietary assets" such as trademarks (Bovee et al. 1995). Through the deployment of the branding tool, Costa Coffee can generate brand equity for its mobile coffee shops and, in so doing, benefit from all of the five components of brand equity listed.

As it has been argued in the above paragraphs, the branding tool can significantly contribute to the success of Costa Coffee's mobile coffee shops. Costa Coffee is, in itself, a recognizable coffee brand that is popular within St. Andrews. Through the extension of its services to consumers, wherever they are, Costa Coffee will ensure that the selection of its coffee brand becomes the more logical and convenient choice. Added to that, its visibility will increase, as will its popularity and visibility among its targeted consumer base.

This is precisely the reason why the group considers this tool critically important to the success of the project.